This application is related to DE 198 37 600.6 filed on Aug. 19, 1998, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes.
The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for pelleting or granulating a liquid or pasty substance in a liquefied, low-boiling cooling medium, the substance being fed into a flow of the cooling medium and being fed together with the cooling medium to a separating device in which the substance is separated from the cooling medium and the latter is returned again into the process cycle.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,047 discloses a method and an apparatus of this type. Pellets of liquid egg are produced by virtue of the fact that the liquid egg is dripped through a nozzle into a liquid flow of a cryogenic liquid which runs over a sloping trough, and the liquid flow with the produced pellets leads to a vibratory screen. The cryogenic liquid is returned and the pellets are conveyed via the screen into a collecting container. The apparatus is no longer insulated in the region of the vibratory screen and the collecting container. The method requires the pellets to be frozen through before they encounter the screen, since otherwise the pellets will be damaged. The flow-medium section must therefore be of relatively large dimensions in order to achieve a dwell time which leads to frozen-through pellets.